RoboRally – Fun, Robot Chaos

That is, if your family loves board games that combine strategy, luck, and a little chaos!

And what family isn’t familiar with a little chaos?

Our family first played RoboRally about 3 years ago and it’s been on dad’s wish list since then. We rented it from our local board game store, Boardgame Revolution, and had a lot of fun. It’s one of those games that I fondly remember playing and just knew that someday I’d get a copy for our family.

And I’m so glad I did!

We’ve played it a bunch since then and have tried it with a wide number of players from 2 to 8. It’s great to play with any number, but we really enjoy it with more players.

Watch Trevor’s video review of RoboRally to see what all the fun is about. In addition to giving an overview of the game, he also runs through a full turn so you can get a great feel for the chaos that can ensue.

How to play RoboRally

Plenty can happen during the race.

For those that skip watching the video, here’s the high-level overview of RoboRally:

Players compete to be the first to get their robot through multiple checkpoints (in order). They do so by playing cards that tell their robot what to do – turn, move ahead, back-up, etc. the catch is that players program 5 sequential actions for their at a time.

Once everyone has programmed their robot commands, players simultaneously flip their first card and each robot follows their program. While moving, robots may also collide and push each other around the board. After each movement all the obstacles in the game also activate – conveyer belts, cogs, and lasers. Plus each robot fires lasers.

Program your robots.

Then everyone flips there next programmed card and on it goes. With walls and pits to boot, it doesn’t take long for robots to get off course from what their players had imagined/planned.

Lots of chaos and lots of fun!

Can the whole family enjoy RoboRally?

Then let them run their course.

The recommended ages for RoboRally are 12+, but we know younger kids will want to join in the fun too. Those cool robots are too fun to pass up.

While younger kids may not enjoy it as much – watching their robot get pushed around an knocked off course – they can still have fun. There’s also a high probability that they’ll get a little frustrated. Even teenagers and adults make mistakes in programming their robot. Not remembering to take conveyor belts, cogs or walls into account can easily lead to directing yourself off course as well. Forget one cog and you’ll be facing the wrong way when you move ahead 3 and send yourself right into a pit.

It’s a showdown – each robot pushing and firing!

But that’s also what keeps it so interesting and fun!

How long is a game of RoboRally?

One of the great things about RoboRally is that it can last as long as you’d like. They are plenty of different double-sided boards that can be set up in many different fashions. And the rule book has different setups that indicated complexity, length, and number of players.

So if you want to play a short game, just pick a board and checkpoint layout recommended for a short game. If you want a knockdown, dragout long game with lots of players, there’s some recommended layouts for that too.

Or feel free to create your own board or special conditions for tons of replayability.

There’s even more

Lots of Options cards to mix it up with cool special abilities.

One of the things Trevor didn’t get to in his video review is showing the cards that give robots additional abilities. If a robot ends their 5th action on a space with a hammer, the player gets an options card that gives their robot a special ability. It could be something like shooting double lasers or pulling another robot your direction or switching out one of an opponent’s program cards.

The only downside to the options cards is that we want to use them more often. Getting to a hammer spot at the end of a 5th action can be tough, so only a couple cards (or none) get into play during a game. The abilities are so cool that we think we’re going to start randomly giving a card to each player at the start of the game just to add some more craziness.

Great Customer Service

Duplicate robot? No problem. Wizards of the Coast will take care of it.

This isn’t a topic that we’ve ever written about before, but I just have to write about the great Wizards of the Coast customer service. Wizards of the Coast is the publisher of the current edition of RoboRally and they take care of their customers!

Our first few plays of RoboRally were with 3 and 4 players. But it wasn’t until a month later when we went to play with 6 players that we noticed we had two of the same robot!

Everything else was in order (robot archive markers), but instead of having Twonky, we had 2 Hulk X90.

All robots accounted for!

So I got online and submitted a customer service ticket about the missing robot (with photo). I had an email response the next day and within 5 business days Twonky was in our hands!

re: Options cards. We’ve been playing that you get one if you end up on a hammer at the end of each of the five registers. This way, options can stack up quickly on some boards, or still be unlikely on others. I wouldn’t go back to the 5th register rule.

Incidentally, I’ve won without any options while my son was wasting time trying to rack up a mess of them.

If options are what you want, play on through the manual. Particularily “The Vault”. A couple of the later ones involve starting with one, or your choice of three as well.
I’ve found with younger players that explaining to them before hand that everyone gets blasted, that going the wrong way is funny, and that the remote control upgrade is Hilarious go a long way to avoiding pouting during the game.
My 5 year old has played, and though he can’t think far enough ahead to really do well, the look of pure joy when he changed Daddy’s easy slide to flag three into a pell-mell rush off the board with a well-timed pushed was fantastic!